Tue Oct 30, 2012 at 07:51:23 AM CDT

( - promoted by mooncat)

With the devastation hurricane Sandy has brought to the East Coast (and on into the Mid-West), the suggestion of delaying the election has been tossed around. Now of course, in order to do so, the "do nothing" members of the 112th Congress would have to high-tail it to Washington to discuss it, then take a vote. That ain't gonna happen.

But. Given the current circumstances, a plan for a similar situation in the future might not be a bad idea. Whether you Democrat, Republican, Independent, or even one of those looney-tune Tea Party types, you should be allowed a reasonable chance to cast a ballot.

To that end, I think Governors should be allowed to delay an election in their state if a state of emergency is in place. Waiting a few extra days to see who wins is a small price to pay to make sure every vote counts.

Democracy was never meant to be a contest to see who can climb the 20' snow drifts or who has a rowboat to get to the polls. The days of the 20th century are long gone. Things change. We must learn to adapt.

The best time to make a disaster plan is before you have a disaster
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There are some circumstances in which an election might reasonably be delayed, but I suggest the bar should be set very high to prevent even the appearance of trying to fiddle with election outcomes by the use of disaster declarations.

Hurricane vacuation orders, road closures due to snow/ice, possibly widespread power outages ... those are the sort of situation that could legitimately delay an election.

With Sandy, a great deal of the concern comes from the loss of early voting days in some of the affected states. BUT, because of early voting, tens of thousands of people have already cast their ballots in those states. It seems to me that a nationwide early voting law might be a way to minimize the effect of future weather-related disasters. If everyone could vote either on election day or on any day in the 3 weeks preceding election day, then a big storm that closed the polls for 2 or 3 days of the voting period wouldn't make so much difference.